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"I imagine you know the answer, of course, or can guess it as easy as winking, since you are sitting comfortably at home and have not the danger of being eaten to disturb your thinking."
[The Hobbit, or There and Back Again; Riddles in the Dark]

"I imagine you know the answer, of course, or can guess it as easy as winking, since you are sitting comfortably at home and have not the danger of being eaten to disturb your thinking."
[The Hobbit, or There and Back Again; Riddles in the Dark]

I will take that. I was actually thinking about Sauron's emissary to Dain, but your answer also works.

Wow, you were easy to convince! Now for the next riddle. I always find the one-word clues the hardest, because they tend to be fairly easy or else they apply to several things and not just 1 unique answer. Not sure I can avoid these traps, but let's try with:

Surgeon

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend," Faramir in TTT by JRRT.

Wow, you were easy to convince! Now for the next riddle. I always find the one-word clues the hardest, because they tend to be fairly easy or else they apply to several things and not just 1 unique answer. Not sure I can avoid these traps, but let's try with:

Surgeon

My experience with these JRRT riddle threads (going back an embarassing number of years now) is that they are most rewarding for the participants if the first valid answer is accepted even if it wasn't what the riddler had in mind. Otherwise it changes from trivia game into an exercise of "guess which of multiple possible answers I am thinking of." My personal guideline is that if I cannot distinguish an answer on the basis of something that was either made clear in the framing of the riddle or because there is a clear "best" answer, I will tip my cap and accept it. I try to anticipate where there are multiple solutions and revise my wording to capture only the (presumably) clever answer I am looking for. If I can't do that, I sometimes will weasle a bit and add framing parameters. For example, I might proactively disqualify one or two more obvious solutions. Sometimes I will say that I need three valid responses in order to satisfy the riddle. Of course, every time I do that it turns out that there were actually 5 qualifying answers, but that's the way it goes. Trying to decide if there is a "best" answer can be tricky. I usually only take a stand on that basis if the "best answer" is something like a direct translation of the clue. For example, "Great Fortress" has many possible solutions, but I didn't feel bad about holding out for "Belegost".

My experience with these JRRT riddle threads (going back an embarassing number of years now) is that they are most rewarding for the participants if the first valid answer is accepted even if it wasn't what the riddler had in mind. Otherwise it changes from trivia game into an exercise of "guess which of multiple possible answers I am thinking of." My personal guideline is that if I cannot distinguish an answer on the basis of something that was either made clear in the framing of the riddle or because there is a clear "best" answer, I will tip my cap and accept it. I try to anticipate where there are multiple solutions and revise my wording to capture only the (presumably) clever answer I am looking for. If I can't do that, I sometimes will weasle a bit and add framing parameters. For example, I might proactively disqualify one or two more obvious solutions. Sometimes I will say that I need three valid responses in order to satisfy the riddle. Of course, every time I do that it turns out that there were actually 5 qualifying answers, but that's the way it goes. Trying to decide if there is a "best" answer can be tricky. I usually only take a stand on that basis if the "best answer" is something like a direct translation of the clue. For example, "Great Fortress" has many possible solutions, but I didn't feel bad about holding out for "Belegost".

Seems to be quite reasonable!

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend," Faramir in TTT by JRRT.